Two held for Staines’ Murder, 14 years later

BHUBANESWAR: How slow are the wheels of Justice? It took the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation 14 tears to trace two criminals who burnt a Pastor and his two kids alive in a jeep. And the two ‘missing’ men were all the while living in their villages.

Nearly 14 years after Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burnt to death by a mob in Odisha, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Friday arrested two absconding accused in the case.

A CBI team arrested Ghanashyam Mohant, 35, and Ranjan Mohant, 38, from their villages Gayalmunda and Bhalughera in Keonjhar district, a senior district police official, who assisted in the arrest, told IANS.

Staines and his two sons Philip, 10, and Timothy, 6, were burnt to death Jan 22, 1999, while they were sleeping in their station wagon in front of a church at Manoharpur village in Keonjhar, about 400 km from here.

The incident was a national shame and triggered global outrage. While the main accused Dara Singh and his accomplice Mahendra Hembram were sentenced to life imprisonment, 11 others were acquitted by a court.

At least three accused in the case went absconding. While the CBI has arrested two of them, the third is still untraced.